Slavoj Žižek - Seminars / Workshops / Lectures

HEGEL (3 credits)

Slavoj Žižek, Ph.D.

Description: This course is an irreverent rediscovery of one of the most influential philosophers of all time; pronounced the first Post-Marxist, Hegel’s dialectics are considered as a systematic notation of the failures of all conceptual reconciliations. Hegel is fundamental to any student studying contemporary philosophy. This course will move within and beyond Hegel's theoretical foundations into the hottest academic debates of today.

Objectives: Students shall become familiar with Hegel and his influence on contemporary philosophical debates. Students will engage Hegel's main theories through a new perspective to bring to light undiscovered realms and hidden regions of Hegel's works.

Learning Outcomes: Students will have learned to incorporate the work of Hegel and Zizek into their dissertation projects. Students will be able to teach the theoretical foundations of Hegel. Students will be prepared to enter the contemporary critical dialogues surrounding Hegel.

Description: This course engages in a critque of religion, science, arts and politics. Through an engaged discussion of the most relevant thinkers of the 20th century and their relationship to ideology this course moves through the most relevant debates of today.

Objectives: Students shall come to class fully prepared to engage the readings on a critical level. Through completing the required readings and bringing one's own unique perspective to the table the seminar will push thinking to its furthest limitations. Only through a completely engaged dialogue will the course begin to push thinking beyond thinking for the process of continued growth in knowledge.

The Passion of the Real, the Pure Semblance of the Spectacular; The Universal and the Real in the Obscene Underside of the Particular; Paying the Price for the Softhearted Liberal; Truth and its Fictional Structure; The Real as Fantasmatic Specter
Assigned Films: Mullholland Drive. David Lynch 2001, USA.; The Matrix. Wachowski, 1999, USA.; Ivan the Terrible I Eisenstein 1944 USSR.

Module Three:Faith Without Belief; The Shame of Believing; The Dramatic Encounter of Radical Otherness; Hegel and The Split Christian God; Sex as Punishment; The Suspension of the Law and the Excess of Life

Module Four:

The Otherness of God, the Real of the (Christian) Illusion ; The Fall, the Abandonment of God by God; Death Drive and the Pursuit of Unhappiness; Love as State of Emergency; Modalities of the Real, Radical Otherness and Minimal Difference; The Truth in Inconsistancy

Module Five:

Capitalism, the Necessity of the Void and the End of Nature ; Exadaptation, Auto-Poiesis and the Relation of Desire; The Four Levels of Sacrifice; Neurobiology and Subjectivity, The Confusion of Cause & Effect; Sex and Virtuality, Nature as Technology

Module Six:

The Trauma of Culture ; Viagra or the Couch, Cognitive Science vs. Psychoanalysis; The Illusion of Human Dignity, Can Human Freedom Be Saved?; Sacrifice and The Ethical Act; Enjoyment: The Object Prohibited; Liberation requires Renunciation

The Real and the Empty Place of Universality; Alain Badiou: The Real of Purification, The Real of Subtraction; The Beginning of Demos and the Birth of the Sans-Papier; Politics and the Search for the Empty Signifier; Heidegger and the Particular, The Specific as Schizophrenic; The Singular Universal and the Search for Minimal Difference; The Capitalist Economy of Suspension and Contingency; Modalities of the Real in Post War US Cinema
Assigned Films: Short Cuts Robert Altman 1993 USA; Birds Alfred Hitchcock 1963 USA

Module Nine:

Consciousness, The Dilemma Of Biogenetics and the Cognitive Sciences; Consciousness as Illusion, Evolutionary Necessity or Cognitive Closure; The Materialist Position: Humanity as By-product; The Pursuit of Pleasure, the Short Circuiting of Instrumental Functions; The Zero Level of Sexuality, Fantasy and the Lack of the Sexual Relationship; Sublimation, Fixation on the Impossible Act; The Radical Contingent Act, DeSade as the Truth of Kant
Assigned Film: Sound of Music, Robert Wise 1965 USA

Module Ten:

Fundamental Notions of Ideology; Interpassivity: The Transposition of Passive Experience; Action without Belief: Virtual Structures and Non Functioning Objects; The Subject Supposed to Know, the Subject Supposed to Enjoy; Dematerialization and The Power of the Fetish; The Obscenity of Power and the Incorporation of Excess; Melancholia and Mourning, Capitalism and its Lost Object; Gender Identity and the Metaphysical Primordial Object; Critique of Mimicry in Post Colonial Studies
Assigned Film: Life is Beautiful. Robert Berningi. 1997 Italy.

Module Eleven:

The Catastrophe, Probability/Impossibility and the Potentialities of the Past; The Event, Nomination, Retroactivity and the Forcing of the Truth; The Before/After of Catastrophe, The Structure of Our Historical World; Pure Capitalism and The Ultimate Empty Signifier, The Out Sourcing of Everything; Collective Solipsism, The Hidden Site of Material Production and the Consuming of Experience; Organs without a Body, Potential Subversions
Assigned Film: M Butterfly David Cronenburg 1993 USA.

Module Twelve:

Globalization, Democracy and Exclusion; Radical Divisions: Changes in Class Distinctions; Post Sept 11th, The Logic of the State/Non State of Emergency; Homo Sacer and Current Politic Structures: Concentration Camps and Humanitarian Aid; Liberal Democracy and its Master Signifier ‘The War on Terror‘; The Invisible Other and the Stigma of Non-Democracy

Butler, Judith. The Psychic Life of Power: Theories of Subjection. Stanford University Press. Stanford, June 1997, Hardcover, ISBN: 0804728119. Buy it at Amazon.com. Paperback, ISBN: 0804728127. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.de, or Amazon.fr.

Rifkin, Jeremy. The Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where All of Life Is a Paid-for Experience. Tarcher. 2001. Paperback, 320 pages, Language English, ISBN: 1585420824. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Žižek, Slavoj. Welcome to the Desert of the Real: Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates. Verso. October 2001, Paperback, 96 pages, Language: English, ISBN: 1859844219. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

MEDIA, POLITICS AND PSYCHOANALYSIS (3 credits)

Slavoj Žižek, Ph.D.

Description: Linking key psychoanalytical and philosophical concepts to social phenomena such as pop culture and political fantasies; allows for a Lacanian reading with emphasis on the metastases of enjoyment and imagination.

Objectives: As this course progresses students will explore the interrelated issues of psychoanlayis, media and politics. We prepare ourselves to engage in current academic discussions surround the distinctions and blurring between these discplines along with teh current theoretical tasks us as modern academics are faced with. As we further our explorations within the blurred boundaries of our current topics the course aims to inform critical theorists and thinkers who are prepared to go beyond the known.